The Evolution from Arcade Nostalgia to Pinball Obsession.

The Business Of Meetings Podcast hosted by Eric Rozenberg.How to Leverage Call Centers with Richard Blank The #1 podcast for business owners in the meetings and events industry, https://youtu.be/DmEuOj1nuRQ?si=j1ozp_byHoT2tAf7 The Business Of Meetings Podcast. If you are an independent business owner in the meeting and event space, this podcast is for you! Your host, Eric Rozenberg has created this show to bring you strategies, tips, and tactics to help your business grow. With more than 20 years in the event industry and planning events for Fortune 100 companies, Eric is prepared to let you in on the insider tactics so you can be successful too! Richard has had an amazing journey! In this episode 116, he talks about call centers, sales, people retention, life, and entrepreneurship. He explains how to leverage call centers to connect better with your customers and grow your business. Dedicated to offering content to business owners in the Meetings & Events Industry, Event Business Formula features original interviews from The Business of Meetings Podcast and other videos of interest. Richard’s journey After graduating in 1991 from Abington High School in North East Philadelphia, Richard went to the University of Arizona. He majored in Spanish and Communication and focused on public speaking, non-verbal communication, and micro-expression reading. When he was 27 years old, a friend who had a call center invited him to go there to teach English, and he ended up working there for four years. Starting a call center In 2008, Richard decided to start a call center with his wife. They began with one seat and fifty hours. Today, fourteen years later, they are 150 strong. They are very selective and reject more accounts than they accept because Richard wants to ensure that he can fulfill his clients’ needs with the accounts that come in, and the agent will be comfortable enough to do the work. The agents’ experience Richard respects Costa Rican customs, culture, and native tongue. He also respects the bilingualism of his agents. He can mold brand-new agents, and with older agents, he sometimes has to get rid of bad habits. By properly preparing his agents, he feels he can put them all on a level playing field. The culture Sometimes, telemarketers and call center agents feel like numbers or robots, and they feel expendable. So before putting them on the phone, Richard gets to know their names and who they are. He also trains them to give them a base foundation to grow. Quality calls Richard likes his agents to focus on doing quality calls. About 30% of all calls come about through referrals. Much of their business happens because they do an excellent job on the first call. By working smarter rather than harder, they earn those referrals. Growing a business by working with call centers Growing a business has a lot to do with workforce management. Small business owners in the meetings and events industry can grow their businesses using omnichannel support and emails. By making phone calls, they also get the chance to do up-sales, get referrals, and answer questions. Put more effort into your communication Putting more effort into your communication, and making it warmer and more inviting, will separate you from others. If you make outbound calls, send an email, or leave a voicemail, take the time to look at the website or the CEO or business leaders’ LinkedIn profiles to get a sense of the tone or the company culture. Answering calls Have your best people answer calls. If there is an overflow, it is worth paying a little extra to work with a blended call center answering service so that you never have to miss that special call! Cold calls Doing cold calls represents half of their business. Their forte is appointment setting and lead generation, and they sometimes do surveys. Outbound calls Richard believes he has cracked a code for making outbound calls! The best approach for a phone call is to use anonymity (apart from mentioning the name of the company you represent) in the first three to five seconds of the call. The Buffer Boomerang technique If someone gives you a negative one, negative two, or a negative three-tone, reduce that tone and make it positive to reset the conversation. Then, show active listening by repeating the question. Land it back at them with a plus-two boomerang response. Positive escalation When your call gets transferred, it is the perfect time to give a positive verbal escalation (complimenting someone who works for you) to gain momentum and move forward. Concluding a call Calls consist of an introduction, a body, and a conclusion. To conclude, ask if there are any final questions, and then finish up with a military alphabet to double-check the email address of the person to whom you are talking. Follow up Follow up with a thank-you email that includes the name of the person who assisted you by transferring your call. Motivation Richard’s agents are properly prepared and well-rehearsed. He motivates his team by giving them prizes for meeting their goals. Working with good faith and good intentions also helps them weather the storms. Reading micro-expressions on the phone The purest form of communication is phonetics because congruence is where audio matches the visual. Phonetics can be broken down into four different sections: Tone Rate Pitch Duration Your tone is the one consistent variable you have when you read micro-expressions. Keep it confident and empathetic. Mirror imaging Focus on the speed and pitch of the person you are talking to. Read them initially to see if they are going faster, slower, louder, or softer. After about five minutes, you will notice if there is a spike or dip in their speech. Tone, rate, and pitch can be manipulated. Your ultimate tell-sign is your subconscious answering speed. Then it will be the ideal time for you to ask a tie-down, a pin-down, or a clarification question. Repetition Richard suggests that you repeat something from time to time to make sure that the person you are talking to is following along with you. It will also give them time to digest what you have been talking about. An exit interview Better phone calls sometimes include an exit interview. You could get five reasons why someone chose your competition or get a suggestion to enhance your services. OUR APPROACH To build a successful event business, you must be an artist who can play several instruments and smile at the camera all at the same time. The Event Business Formula™ is designed to help you clearly address 3 major success arenas: PEOPLE If you’re “alone at the top” putting out fires and saving the day, then it’s time to share your leadership challenges with experts and peers. The Event Business Formula will help you and your organization solve problems by ’brainstorming with other professionals who face the same challenges and collaborating one to one with top innovators and experts. STRATEGY You’re stellar at putting out fires and creating on the spot solutions. It’s part of your DNA, the very thing clients and colleagues have always praised you for doing, but it’s exhausting and not enough for you anymore! It’s time to stop the insanity and develop new strategies and processes that will move you and your organization to a more fulfilling and profitable position. TECHNOLOGY Ever wish you had more time to think, learn and grow? Do you spend countless hours doing business – not building business? Have you’ve heard about the powerful methodologies like Blue Ocean Strategy or Business Model Canvas? We’ll bring you up to speed on these and more, helping you transform your approach, making life easier and more rewarding for you, your clients and your team. OUR PROGRAMS Discover how we can help you grow your meetings and events business Through a combination of online training programs, private coaching, and in-person masterminds, we help entrepreneurs in the meetings and events industry grow and scale their business. 1. Interpersonal Communication Conflict Management Strategy 2. Phonetic Micro Expression reading for mastering verbal tell signs. 3. The Famous Buffer-Boomerang Technique Advanced telemarketing strategy, conflict management, interpersonal soft skills, customer support, rhetoric, gamification, pinball machines, employee motivation and phonetic micro expression reading. Richard’s vision quest journey is filled with twists and turns. At 27 years old, he relocated to Costa Rica to train employees for one of the larger call centers in San Jose. With a mix of motivational public speaking style backed by tactful and appropriate rhetoric, Richard shared his knowledge and trained over 10 000 bilingual telemarketers over two decades. Richard Blank has the largest collection of restored American Pinball machines and antique Rockola Jukeboxes in Central America making gamification a strong part of CCC culture.Richard Blank is the Chief Executive Officer for Costa Rica’s Call Center since 2008. Mr. Richard Blank holds a bachelors degree in Communication and Spanish from the University of Arizona and a certificate of language proficiency from the University of Sevilla, Spain. A Keynote speaker for Philadelphia's Abington High School 68th National Honors Society induction ceremony. In addition, entered into the 2023 Hall of Fame for Business along side other famous alumni. Paying it forward to Abington Senior High School is very important to Mr. Blank. As such, he endows a scholarship each year for students that plan on majoring in a world language at the university level. Costa Rica’s Call Center (CCC) is a state of the art BPO telemarketing outsource company located in the capital city of San Jose, Costa Rica. Our main focus has been, and will always be to personally train each and every Central America call center agent so that we may offer the highest quality of outbound and inbound telemarketing solutions and bilingual customer service to small and medium sized international companies, entrepreneurs as well as fortune 500 companies. https://costaricascallcenter.com/en/outbound-bpo-campaigns/ #Event Business Formula #TheBusinessOfMeetingsPodcast #EricRozenberg #RichardBlank #CostaRica #CallCenter #Outsourcing #Telemarketing #BPO #Sales #Entrepreneur #B2B #Business #Podcast #Gamification #CEO #learnpodcasting #podcastepisode #podcastguest #podcasting #podcastinterview #podcastplaylist #podcasts #podcastskills #podcastshow Event Business Formula, The Business Of Meetings Podcast, Eric Rozenberg Richard Blank,Costa Rica's Call Center, Outsourcing, Telemarketing, BPO, Nearshore, Sales, Entrepreneur, B2B, Business,Podcast,Gamification,Leadership,Marketing, Radio, Guest, Money, education, trainer, Event Business Formula presents: The Business Of Meetings Podcast hosted by Eric Rozenberg. How to Leverage Call Centers with Richard Blank Adapting Contact Strategies Post-COVID I have one more question for you in terms of outsourcing. So I'm owner of a meeting and event company. I had 50 prospects that I wanted to call two years ago. And then today, COVID happened. People don't work in the office anymore. They change. How do you go about finding the information to call somebody who might still be with the company, but is not working in the building anymore? The fact that it's a list of 50 makes me feel great because I can marinate the list. There are so many different ways that you can cross-reference information from email addresses to their past positions to phone numbers. And then if it's a stretch, you can just find people that have worked with them and reach out to them. It just might take a little bit more effort, but then again, it gives you a chance that when you get the information to contact that person, you do the positive escalation that this coworker of theirs had recommended. And so is it more labor intensive? Yes. But then again, look on the bright side. If you were just making these phone calls without any sort of research behind it, you probably wouldn't have uncovered something. Appreciating Life's Small Treasures Post-COVID And as much as we're successful and we are comfortable and we have the luxury to do certain things, the most important thing for me in my life is my family, my wife, my good friends, myself. And it's really made me more appreciative of the small things. And I know that makes sense to not only you, but to your audience. And I'm sorry to get sentimental for a minute. And you said it very well. The right tone with the right speed. That's excellent. Unreal, man. And it's just one of those things that I just take to heart during how you and I both survived and came out better after COVID Creating A Playful Work Culture with Retro Arcades It's just part of our culture here we work hard but we also play hard and me being a child still a 50-year-old child the greatest thing for me is to supply your huge free play retro arcade game room which I've always wanted and fortunately I have the space for it so I packed my first floor with an air hockey table a bunch of machines And it really makes a great environment. And I'm not done. Hey, I'm going to find your Pac-Man machine for you. It will take some time, but I'll definitely find it. Awesome. But when you and I speak next year, ask me how many machines I have then. I might need to rent another school Mastering First Impressions in Cold Calls A phone call happens where, let's say you're making a cold call. A lot of the times through hedging, just through reactions, sometimes when people will just ask how people are doing. I've seen that you get more positive reactions by using anonymity in the first three to five seconds of the call. You are allowed to say the name of the company. Like I would say, business for meetings. How are you doing today? So instead of asking how Eric is doing today, you would say business for meetings. How may I help you? Hi, business for meetings. How are you doing today? So I have my anonymity. I said the name of your company better than you did. And we've also seen from an action to a reaction, we've gotten some positive reinforcement where people will feel that we've called there before or know somebody there. And let's just say that you just do the cold, you know, business to meetings. How are you today? And then the person says, great. And then there's a pause there because once again, you're not rushing. And then if you get the name, let's say they use the name Kathy, for example, then you could say, Kathy, I'm looking to speak to Eric. Thank you very much. And then they would say to you, usually a question, what is this regarding? What is your company name? Perfect. Respect and Empowerment in Call Centers What an excellent question. First and foremost, I know that I'm a guest in this country. And so I am definitely respecting their customs, their culture, and their native tongue. Secondly, I respect the fact that they are bilingual, which bears the mark of higher education. So they've shown me structure, discipline, and cognitive skills. And I'd be remiss to think that I started them off there. No, they're coming to the table very strong. If they're brand new agents, Eric, then I can mold them. If they're older agents, then I have to get rid of some bad habits. But the one thing is fear. It's a morbid anticipation of things that haven't happened yet. If I can properly prepare them, give them the script, the rebuttals, the CRM training, if I can put all the agents on a level playing field, they can be competitive. But the biggest thing that I saw and the largest gripe that I heard are that telemarketers and call center agents, they feel like numbers sometimes. They feel like robots. Let's just say they feel expendable. And the first thing that I do prior to even putting them on the phone is to know your name. I'm going to know who you are. And our clients like to invest in a lot of onboarding and training. You don't need to do it over excessive, but prior to even any sort of material training of the account, my clients allow me to do at least two hours worth of soft skills training. So I can go over conflict management, phonetics, semantics, I can go over certain sort of deliveries and tones and I can work with them. So at least to give them a base foundation to grow upon. And so that is the sort of environment that we have here. The agents are not expendable. I'm only looking to delegate so I can promote them from within. The Evolution from Arcade Nostalgia to Pinball Obsession I grew up in the 70s and 80s. Ah, the best. Going to an arcade back in the day was great. It was a fun experience. And I don't know if you remember the TV show, but Ricky Schroeder was in a show called Silver Spoons. And they had a Pac-Man machine, a Tempest machine, a Gorf machine, and a pinball machine. And every kid in the 80s wanted that Silver Spoons game room. And so fast forward to today, I'm a business owner, doing well for myself. All of a sudden, I found my first pinball down here. And a hobby became an obsession. https://youtu.be/DmEuOj1nuRQ?si=j1ozp_byHoT2tAf7 https://youtu.be/xRHSHokAJ8I https://youtu.be/2-OeoBas_Bg https://youtu.be/rHY91_ZtrRw https://youtu.be/3vjc5G4ZJLs